television

"Contrary to press reports today we can confirm that no new episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures will be filmed following the tragic death of actress Elisabeth Sladen in April, 2011. As a tribute to Elisabeth the six episodes that were recorded with her last year will be broadcast on CBBC at a date to be confirmed."

The new 2011 series of Doctor Who premiere episode, The Impossible Astronaut which was telecast on BBC America on Saturday, April 23, was the highest-rated, most-watched telecast ever for the channel (in live and same day ratings). It delivered almost 1.3 million viewers (1,268,010 total viewers). This is up 71,000 viewers from its previous best for last year's opening episode of Doctor Who (The Eleventh Hour).

BBC America's YouTube content reached an all-time high of 3.5 million viewers. Doctor Who is also currently the number one television series in the Apple iTunes Store.

Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) is one of the guests tonight on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. This is the episode she recorded last week (as mentioned in Doctor Who: Podshock 243). The show is on at 12:37am (technically Saturday) EDT, check your local listings in your area for show times in your area.

The Late Late Show with Craig Furgeson's guest this time around is Karen Gillan, the show is on April the 13th, for those of you who want to go and live in the or will be in LA around the time you can visit Craig's CBS website for tickets. (link below) just scroll down to the appropriate show and click on the get tickets button.

On Monday's episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson it featured a segment on Gallifrey One 2011 featuring video shot at the convention which included our banners for Doctor Who: Podshock, as well as Tara Wheeler's TARDIS and Tara @TARDIS_Tara herself.

Chris Hardwick presented his report on Gallifrey one last night on the Craig Ferguson Show. Tara Wheeler @TARDIS_Tara and her TARDIS make up the end of the report. Plus a special appearance from the Head of Pertwee.

Once again, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (on CBS in the US) will be having a Doctor Who related guest this Thursday (6th January 2011). This time it is Alex Kingston (River Song). Although she is not listed (at the time of this writing) in the upcoming shows for free tickets (they are actually recording two shows on Thursday according to their website, one at 3pm with actor Gary Sinise and one at 4:15pm with actress Mila Kunis - the latter being sold out), it was announced that "River Song" would be on Thursday's show via Craig Ferguson's Twitter feed. In addition, the Doctor Who musical opening number ("cold open") which could not be aired last November has finally been cleared for this show.

I wouldn't be too concerned about her absence on the website, as with the last time when Matt Smith was scheduled to appear on the show (16th November 2010), he was not showing up on the site for the longest time. Perhaps this show was pre-recorded on another day? @CraigyFerg tweeted the following tweet on Monday:

If you are a long time listener of Doctor Who: Podshock, you may recall segments by Joe Corallo ( @JoeCorallo ) some years ago. He mostly reviewed audio dramas such as the Cybermen story, Spare Parts by Big Finish. You may have met him at our recent 25th Anniversary Event for the Gallifreyan Embassy last month (see photo to left of him with Daphne Ashbrook).

The final viewing figures for the Sarah Jane Adventures has been released. On average the show got 0.52 milion on BBC One alone and the same again on CBBC per episode, and even beats Blue Peter which during the same time had an average of 0.44 million viewers. Lost in time achieved the highest combined viewing figures of 1.57 million viewers. The average total overall per episode for the series is 1.29 million viewers which is up form last years 1.01 million. See the graph below for full figures and spreads.

Part 1 of our Interview with Paul Scoones @paul_scoones (responsible for Doctor Who DVD info text) by Ian Bisset @The6thDoctor , Amy Krell @amykrell joins us with her new segment, 'Amy's Choice', Anthony S Burdge @MythicDocWho interviews long time Gallifreyan Embassy member Tim Grogan @whoviangrande on Doctor Who fandom in the 1980s, feedback, news, and more.

He is there for the 3:30 pm (PST) recording of the show in Los Angeles, CA. Which also means he won't be able to attend our event that evening on here the East coast.

There has been a good deal of confusion leading up this late night talk show appearance. As recently as last Thursday, the office of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson was sending out emails indicating that Matt Smith would not be appearing, meanwhile, that same day Craig Ferguson's Twitter account @CraigyFerg was tweeting that Matt Smith is to appear that night. In addition, there will be a Dalek there as well (which was tweeted the following day)!

Further to a piece of E-mail Louis, Ken and James received in Doctor Who: Podshock 224, where the Author bemoaned having to pay the BBC licence fee. And we all know how James is a great champion for the BBC, well here's another.

Mitch Benn is well known in his own right as a Comical Singer Songwriter, and is part of the BBC Radio 4 "The Now Show!" with Steve Punt and High Dennis. Put everything (He could think of, including Blakes 7 and Tripods so that should keep ken happy, and yes Doctor Who does get a mention!) down in to one song. He himself would probably say it's not everything that the BBC has done or does but, for us Doctor Who fans the Show gets the most mentions in the song. Mitch Benn being another vocal fan.